Vigilance moves HC for cancellation of EX-DGP Saini’s bail

On August 2, VB registered a case against Saini and 6 others for acquiring a house in Chandigarh in a fraudulent deal

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab vigilance bureau (VB) has moved the Punjab and Haryana high court seeking cancellation of bail granted to former Punjab director general of police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini on August 12 in a corruption case. The plea will be taken up for hearing on Monday.

On August 12, the high court had granted protection from arrest to Saini and directed him to join the probe within seven days.

On August 2, the VB registered the case under the Prevention of Corruption Act and criminal conspiracy against the former DGP, along with six others, including public works department executive engineer Nimratdeep Singh and his father Surinderjit Singh Jaspal, who owned a house in Chandigarh’s Sector 20. The agency alleged Saini acquired the said house in a fraudulent deal with fake documents and questionable financial transactions.

It says Saini went to the vigilance headquarters on the evening of seventh day when protection was to end and by when offices had closed. It was only to create evidence of him having being gone to join investigation although there was no intention. He tried to handover an application and then got himself photographed so that some evidence of him joining probe could be created, it has submitted, adding that he was to join probe in the Sector 69 office of investigating officer of the vigilance bureau, but chose to visit vigilance headquarters in Sector-68.

Saini himself has headed the Punjab vigilance bureau and is well aware of the procedure of joining investigation and that office closes at 5pm. He went there without prior intimation to investigating officer, the plea says, adding that when he was summoned again on August 27 for September 1, he failed and conveyed that he was ill. “The excuse put forth is a blatant lie and an attempt to overreach the process of law and circumvent the orders of high court requiring him to join the probe,” it says, demanding that August 12 order be recalled and protection granted to him withdrawn.

On August 18, Saini was arrested in a September 2020 cheating case when he had gone to vigilance office to join the probe in corruption case as directed by high court on August 12. A day later, high court had termed his arrest illegal and ordered his release.